Fender Lap Steel pickup.........

[Electricdaveyboy]

Good day sunshine !
One of my customers bought one on ebay.He was told it is a 1953 Champion Lap steel pickup.
I checked it with my gaussmeter and the gauss was nearly as high as my new alnico V rods of the same lenght.The manetwire is 42 AW PE and 6,7 K ohm.
I wonder : blackguard nacho man says they are the same as early Telecaster pickups ,wich had A 3 magnets and AWG 43.

The pickup sounded verry fresh and full of life , a good tone .

[Spence]

I wonder if that pickup has been rewound. It's not out of the question.
Fender used a lot of different magnets and sometimes mixed them up in the same bobbin.

The Raebrooke company talks about a lot of old magnet types with names that are brand names really such as Alcomax. They give equivalent names too. This is good reference material if nothing else as Alni known in the US as AlNiCo I was used by Fender as well as some cobalt steels.

Are you measuring Gauss or the Coercivity? ie, is your meter reading Gauss or Oersteds or Tesla?

By the way, I checked the gauss on a 1957 Fender Strat. Every magnet was nearly full strength for what you'd expect of a fully charged A5. That guitar had rarely been out of the case.

It's also important to understand that the length of a magnet detwrmines how much charge it will hold. So can you be sure of the comparison between your new A5's and these magnets?

[Possum]

....

Nacho is full of beans. The gauss readings they did were with a magnetometer which reads to 25 and is a mechanical device that only reads relative strength , not guass. He will tell you that every Fender pickup in that date range was alnico 3, which is WRONG. I have my friend's '51 bridge pickup here and it reads like yours does, up around 1200 guass or near there. Alnico 3 cannot reach that high a reading. they used 43 and 42 gauge wire at the same dates, the one here is 42 gauge, it is from an authentic Nocaster with '51 date in the neck pocket. I've been told some of that stuff could be cobalt steel but how do you tell, and could it reach such high gauss levels? Does it rust? The mags on the nocaster look like alnico to me, some rust but not much.....

[Electricdaveyboy]

Hello Spence , Hello Possum !
Thanks for your reply.

I use a cheapman gaussmeter made with a hall sensor.
The lenght of the magnets is around 17 mm and the gauss readings were around 1000-1100 if I remembeer well.My brand new alnico v had 1200 on my gaussmeter.
A new full charged ( by myself) alnico III came to 700 gauss.
So this old magntes could not be Alnico III.

Looking at the wire ,it looks much thicker than my AWG 42 REA PE and it looks alike ( colour) the wire on my old 50ties P-90.

I do not think it is rewound or a fake.
I think the F guys used what ever they could get in those early years.

The owner of the pickup expected a warm mellow sounding pickup.-
but after checking those facts I told him that this pickup will not sound mellow.

He installed it in his Squier JV and we heard a nice spanky country tone.

I will get another Champion pickup next week. ...........

cheers
david

[Electricdaveyboy]

Hello,
I got a broken 1955 champion pickup from and checked it for specs.
Seems that the Leos made it a bit different from the earlier pickup.
This one is wound with AW 43 and has alnico III magnets.

db

[Sam Lee Guy]

Mr. Electric Davy, please check polarity. I would guess north up in which case it it not 1955 but before mid 51. Very black wax on leads also indicate earlier pickup.

[Electricdaveyboy]

Oh thanks Sam,
this pickup has back wax on white string , north up , A3 and AWG 43 / 6,7 K.
It was given to me as a 1955.Compared to the other Champion pickup it has a 2,5 mm bottom plate instead of the 1,8 mm.
thanks
david